


Our pinkie promises were never meant for this

by Justausernameonline



Category: Power Rangers, Power Rangers (2017)
Genre: F/F, I Can't Believe I Wrote This, Legend of Zelda UA, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Post-Canon, Twoshot, adhd dyslexic Kimberly, avoidant Trini, but here, do not need to have played a loz game to read this, its like a fight another day fic, trimberly - Freeform, universe altered
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-20
Updated: 2017-06-20
Packaged: 2018-11-16 10:02:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11250855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Justausernameonline/pseuds/Justausernameonline
Summary: Trini’s feet ache.  Her eyes burn from crying, but she can’t stop staring, trying to seek out Kimberly’s motive to a very terrific near-death experience.Then she laughs.  Kimberly is grinning when she opens her eyes.  Because what they’re doing is ridiculous.They’re okay.  They made it out.She is breathing in sync before her.  She is fine, if for a bit worn out, but she is fine.Tomorrow, they have another day of trying that’s worth their lives.~-~-~-~In the aftermath of an ambush, Trini and Kimberly tend to each other.  (A Legend of Zelda UA)





	Our pinkie promises were never meant for this

**Author's Note:**

> music to listen to:
> 
> \- 'Remain' by Jay Som  
> \- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHi2LQwUCFI  
> \- http://zelda-tunes.tumblr.com/post/161471877568/manaka-katoaka-racing-shieldsurfing
> 
> (06/21/17 Edit: i added some parts and tried to change the format)

Call the stringent thud of her bloodstream in her ears a fear of what lays beyond, a requisite for her dead sprint to last longer, but Trini determines it as not close enough, not fast enough, nowhere right where she needs to be.  Right after losing their tail and would-be murderer, she’s cleared the mountains, consequently power lines to telephone lines, and slows down within sight of the occasional passing vehicle to get to her house.  Her visions sucks with unshed tears, are a nigh detriment to when she sails through her bedroom window and almost ricochets off the bed.  She’s safe.  At a cost.

When she closes her eyes, in a heap, her ears resound of Kimberly’s shouts merging into a terrible scream. The blades’ percussive tune.  Thaumic energy–hers–missing its opportune strike.  Her death cut short.  A midsummer nightmare made real.  By her own volition she traces the creases in her palms until she’s fully back in herself, completely breaking the disconnect she has to her rapid breathing and grime and sweat while tears run down her cheeks.

She shouldn’t be sitting in bed.  She has to be with  _her_.

The fault is all Trini’s.

She’s home alone, and for once, it doesn’t swallow her in its silence like a vacuum.  It sharpens her priorities into a fine line.  She splashes water to her face and combs her hair back to some order, and once she grabs her book shelved under her bed, pulls her hood harder, she’s out in full speed the moment her first foot hits the lawn.  She can’t pull herself to Kimberly’s home now when  _they_  can track her that way, not when they’ve so narrowly avoided the encounter, not when they’re still hot on their trail.  This dormant, ancient basin stored within her is half-spent, after sorely mistaking her capacity to cast the effects in her defense could keep up.  They cannot even rely on their armor in battle because it creates another issue to be dealt with, and having Jason, Billy, and Zack’s contacts on hand but are for their sake unreachable  _kills her_.  She can’t involve them, even if they catch a single whiff of what they do at the dead of night, when they should be sleeping their summers to morning.  And she doesn’t even know if Kimberly’s still on those mountains making her way down.  Or she never did.

_Prove me wrong._

At this point, she doesn’t know who’s she’s asking.

All but one light is on in the Hart household’s second floor when she arrives, almost shredding the grass with her feet.  A trap, maybe.   _Fuck_ it.Halfway through the windowsill, she’s morphing, shifting into form as she treads the floor, hating how her shoulders hunch like she’s going to crumple into something indefinite at the end of a vain search.

After a strict survey of the house, she returns to Kimberly’s bedroom and crosses to the locked bathroom door, where light bleeds from the crack below.  She knocks a series of six taps.

“I’m here,” comes the faint reply, and the door unlocks, but not before the light shuts off.

It’s definitely Kimberly stepping from the shadows of the green nightlight, not a guise, once she meets her eyes.  The wariness on her face dwindles substantially once they fall to her armor.  

Something that’s wound Trini tight in her chest loosens, and she’s grinning, all but encapsulated in her wholeness, her overall welfare.  “You’re okay,” she whispers.

“About that…”

She’s awkwardly parting the door wider to let Trini in with her right hand, her non-dominant one, and clasps her left arm to her stomach, wincing when she lets it go by accident.  Trini locks onto the the slight protrusion of bone under the skin of her left shoulder as she catches her arm from swinging.

Her breath catches. “Kim.”

A weak semblance of a laugh falls from Kimberly’s mouth as she withdraws her arm, favoring her weight to the right.  “Didn’t get cleaved in half like you thought I would, didn’t I?”

Trini lets her mask dissipate and dips her head, blinking hard.  “I can’t laugh to that,” she says simply.

“Well, I can, because you almost died.”

“And I thought  _you_ were!” Trini winces and quiets herself.  “You can’t do that again.”

“No promises.”

They uphold that.  But concerning Kimberly, learning her death is most compelling way for Trini to just evanescence from life itself as well.  She can’t bring back the dead.  And it’s her fault, for really listening to her.  “I shouldn’t have run when you told me to.”

"Then we would’ve been both at risk.” Kimberly purses her lips, shifting on her feet.

Trini swallows as her armor recedes into her skin, stepping closer to Kimberly.  She looks to her torn black tee and white sleeves barely holding itself together, the caked mud on her boots, and to the scrapes and cuts on her skin.  She’s not pale from blood loss.  That’s good, always better than what she has in mind.  The challenging jerk of Kimberly’s chin, her still if otherwise angular combative stance, multiplies her anxiety.

She stares back resolutely, wishing for a way to turn back time, if only for a chance to have Kimberly leave the fight unscathed. Tapping Kimberly’s hand that’s curled into a fist, she coaxes it to loosen, and her hug seems to finally relax Kimberly, as if gently prying away the final vestiges of terror-driven adrenaline, and Trini breathes in notes of sweat, blood, grass, oil and strawberries clinging to her skin.  This is the girl she loves, who she wants safe, damn the stars.  

Not only do they work for Zordon, they’re working for three goddesses.  Accepting the merged mantle as a bearer of a Triforce piece and a Power Ranger meant taking what was designated.  

'Call to adventure' that the protagonist often refuses at the start? She gets it now.  She wants to...stop time.  Rest.  

But she needs to go on, for Kimberly's sake and everyone else's.  And any later, and they wouldn't have fared better, that much she can make sense of.    

Pulling away, but not completely, combing strands of damp dark hair from Kimberly’s face and ignoring how her own hands shake, she says, “You’re more likely to get mortally wounded, you know that, right?” She shakes her head.  “I’m always at the sidelines. Not helping enough. So I should’ve been more careful in holding the clearing while you got the Master Sword.”

“No,“ Kimberly says in an instant.

“How can you say that?” Trini protests.

"All I can say is that you were doing fine. Whatever you did, it weakened your senses, and they saw and went for you.” With her good hand, she hops onto the sink.

Trini mimics her, casting her gaze around the bathroom. She doesn’t like how strongly she denies it; she sees new flaws she never expected to take shape when they put it into action.  She only can remember failings on her part, every spurt of blood from the openings the encounter had marked upon Kimberly the moment she pulled the sword from the stone.  It lays in the tub now like any ordinary ceremonial-looking thing, humming of untapped power.  A little blood-spattered, a little dull on the edges, but a worthy, narrowly gained victory.

Evil’s Bane.  In the scramble for it, Kimberly had almost lost her arm.  Trini, her life; not that she cares much for the latter, because it means Kimberly’s safe passage home is ensured.  But in the long run, she can’t stave off their adversary alone.

“They’re stronger than I thought…but not strong enough to cut me down, 'cause I could block everything they tried at me–but they put their whole weight into it, and to think if you were the one–what were they? They were like a superhuman like us. They had thaumic energy like you, but it was like they knew how to use it the moment they were given it. We were caught at the worst time, at night without any bystanders.  It wouldn’t have, like, changed anything, but it would have bought us more time.

“But we handled it better than our time with Rita.  We stood our ground until we couldn’t.” Kimberly turns to her, hands out in a pleading gesture.

“But I  _left_ ,” Trini says.  To disagree with her on this matter hurts.  “And it wasn’t better that way.”

 _It’s my fault,_  she wants to say, and maybe scream like raising volume helps their situation, since it’s never worked in her upbringing, just made her cry and fear more, but she leaves it unspoken, but Kimberly notices and her gaze turns indignant.

“If it weren’t for my arm,” she starts, “I’d be out there tracking that asshole who tried to murder us.” She says it as if that’s the perfect response to an inconvenience of another customer affecting the lineup of to a cashier.  Like murdering murderers is what she does daily.

“Sick,” Trini says automatically, “but you could die.”   _Of sleep deprivation or blood loss or both._

“No doubt, no doubt.  Maybe…making out for a few minutes would help us figure things out.”

It’s so out of nowhere that Trini gapes at her for a few seconds.  Kimberly’s crooked grin brings her scowl back in full force.  “No way!  You need bed-rest.  First.” They exchange looks in the mock-ritual of upset couples.

Trini’s feet ache.  Her eyes burn from crying, but she can’t stop staring, trying to seek out Kimberly’s motive to a very terrific near-death experience.

Then she laughs.  Kimberly is grinning when she opens her eyes.  Because what they’re  _doing_ is ridiculous.

They’re okay.  They made it out.

 _She_ is breathing in sync before her.   _She_ is fine, if for a bit worn out, but she is  _fine_.

Tomorrow, they have another day of trying that’s worth their lives.

Kimberly’s grin sobers.  “Hey.”

“Yeah?”

“I’ll watch you back,”

“And I’ll watch yours.  That’s always how it’s been.”

“I know,” Kimberly replies, “But haven’t you considered being heroes requires some sacrifices? Teenage antics?”

Trini frowns at her wiggling eyebrows.  “It’s time to go to sleep, Kim,” she says.

“Of course,” Kimberly says, and leans forward.  Trini presses her finger to her lips to stop her advance, so she kisses that instead tenderly with an emphatic smack, sending a rush to Trini’s cheeks.  “Can you fix my shoulder?”

“We can’t make a trip to the hospital without causing a ruckus, so it’s a given.”

“I’ve had my fair share in cheerleading.  I’ll talk you through it.” Kimberly nods firmly at Trini’s dismayed expression.  “I told you I’ve broken lots of bones in my time, right? This is just dislocated.”

“Yeah.  But for any extra pain done on your behalf, is my fault.”

“None taken, babe.”

“Really, I don’t know how to fix a shoulder,” Trini mutters. 

“And I don’t know how to tell apart a seal from a sale sometimes,” Kimberly says, shrugging with her good shoulder.  It takes awhile for Trini to get the joke, but she guffaws a little when she does, and Kimberly’s smiling that smile at her that turns her insides to incomprehensible gooeyness, as undesirable as that sounds.

After Trini’s typed the instructions on her phone Kimberly says in less than a dozen ways how, they go for it.  Trini lays out a towel on the bathroom floor and helps Kimberly lie down.  She bends Kimberly’s elbow at a right angle and keeps her upper arm perpendicular to the ground.  At the same time, she rotates her arm and shoulder back into her joint.  

There are many tries, and Kimberly’s making tepid remarks under her breath by the time her shoulder’s back into its rightful place.  Tears glisten in her eyes as she sits up, sinking to Trini’s side with her fist softening to stroke Trini’s thigh.

Soaking a sun-dried scrubbing towel and rubbing a bit of soap to its surface, she clears the dirt on all exposed parts of Kimberly’s body, taking extra care with her still healing left shoulder and arm as blood in the limb slowly circulates.

She thumbs the back of Kimberly’s lace bra through her tee.  It’s the kind without clips at the end.  No straps, too, so she’d have to pull it over Kimberly’s neck, which calls for some effort.  She prefers Kimberly not to move her shoulder at all.

“Just keep it on.  I can handle a few hours.” Kimberly’s seemed to telegraph her next words.  “Or…”

She can hear that  _infuriating_ smile.

Trini scowls and snaps the back of her bra.  Kimberly jumps.  “It  _stays_ on your boobs, princesa.”

“Fine, fine.”

She helps her dress into a worn, open-sided sleeveless shirt, black as obsidian like her included short-shorts, disposing her worn ones into the hamper, apologizing every time Kimberly stumbles on their way to her bedroom.  They’re not exactly for sleeping, but since it’s clean, whatever goes.

“Are you going back to the house?” Kimberly asks.

Trini shakes her head.  She doesn’t want to leave her alone, nor can bear the thought of abandoning her to what the night’s crafted in store for her own nightmares.  “Can I stay in your home?”

Kimberly tilts her head towards her bed.  “Always for you.  Want me to help you change?” She wiggles her left hand.  “I’m getting back feeling in this limb.  Better to exercise it…a bit,” she adds, when Trini gives her a stern look.  Her chastisement seems to embolden her only, flipping the hood of Trini’s cloak as she tries to remove it.  She nearly bumps into her dresser.

But she manages to hip-check Kimberly onto her bed without looking, blushing all the while.

She’s (hopefully never  _ever_ ) going to be the death of her.

They shove the Master Sword, scabbard and all, under Kimberly’s bed.  Passing through the hall under the blanketing darkness, Kimberly picks out from the bathroom a warm yellow shirt Trini left the day before and a green pair of cargo pants cuffed above the ankles, then watches her tries them on.  They’re way past hesitation of undressing before each other’s eyes, but Trini still flushes at her gaze, the clear admiration in her eyes and smiling mouth.

They drag themselves into bed over the covers at first.  Seems like they both share the fear of being trapped in bed. Trini takes to stroking Kimberly’s hair, tousling it the wrong way and right, smoothing apart its tangles and avoiding the healing scar on her hairline.

When Kimberly shifts out of her touch to cradle her face, she waits until she’s drawn into a forehead kiss that leaves no room for doubt.  She savors its softness while Kimberly rubs her fingers down her back to her hips, digging a little hard into the bone.  “Yo, no,” Trini giggles, lightly smacking her stomach.

Kimberly grimaces, sucking in her breath.

“Shit.” She feels her heartbeat uptick.  “I’m sorry.  May I see?”

She pulls up the hem of Kimberly’s shirt.  There are the beginnings of a bruise just below her ribs.  “…You got anything else?”

“It’ll heal on its own,” Kimberly responds, but discomfort on her face remains as clear as day.

Trini shakes her head and pushes herself up, pulling Kimberly’s hands away.  She focuses on the warmth in her right palm, coaxing it to cool.  It makes a bluish tint, never shedding light.  It’s all she needs to heal the bruises on her shoulder and stomach.  Staring at Kimberly’s nightstand light, it turns on at the lowest setting, as to guide her eyes without searing them.

Her palm’s cold to the touch by then, and she sets it on the bruise on her stomach first.

Kimberly smacks the back of her head on her headboard with a gasp.

“Shit, sorry.” Her stomach twists as she gives her a pillow for support, rubbing circles into the back of Kimberly’s head.

“No,” Kimberly soothes, although she looks a bit irked and groggy at the same time.  Plus, she looks ready to duke it out with the headboard.  She obeys when motioned to lie down.

Trini scans for other wounds, biting her lip.  She continues to focus with channeling her energy in clearing the dead cells to speed the healing process.  Blue and gold gleam and undulate during the process, from what she sees at the border of her skin, like reflections on freshwater.

Lifting her hand, seeing the bruise significantly less swollen, a brown just a tad darker than Kimberly’s skin, she shifts gears and calls heat back into her palm.  “Anything else?” she asks again.

“My neck–”

Trini’s almost afraid to find the tattoo of bruises there.  She sets to healing her current bruise then tends to her next one right away. 

( _Kimberly shield-bashes them back. All of her weight in._

_Stumbles.  Her stance–wide open._

_Then she’s off the ground, kicking as the red miasma on her neck stays in the strong whirlwind of the late night._

_It coils round her body_ _._

_Swallows her._

_Bow drawn to its full weight, Trini falters._

_"Shoot!” Kimberly chokes out, “Shoot them_ now! _”_ )

“Hey,” Kimberly murmurs.  She had sat up, her bare thigh pressing against hers.  A warm calloused hand cradles her chin.  “Where were you?”

“Reminiscing.” Trini experimentally taps the faded bruise on Kimberly’s neck. It looks nothing more than a light blemish, and Kimberly reacts in favor of her work by not reacting at all.  Figures.  She’s almost got healing down pat, just her combat magic and aiming–

“Is it about this?” Kimberly scratches at her neck.

“Don’t–”

“I feel fine.”

“For now.” Trini’s head-shake is sluggish.  Maybe from using so much thaumic energy.  The feeling is like her retinas burning from too much like, but throughout her body.  There has to be a way to measure her limits accordingly or she’s going to be caught off-guard at every whim.  Couple that with her daily struggle getting to bed and leaving bed, and it’s worse.  She hasn’t asked the toll Kimberly’s bearing, but the answer more or less requires observation than inquiry.

Kimberly reaches back to shut off the lamp, and Trini casts particles of gold, blue, and green before the room goes almost dark.  They make their slow rounds around every square inch.  She wants to sleep well without the fluorescent lights cutting in from the windows, and while the dark has always been a comfort for her, as is a shut room, she feels especially vulnerable tonight.  If not for tonight, she would've been a little more demonstrative of what she's managed to learn in a month, but she indulges herself with Kimberly's observance of the particles, how they shift through the air like the steady movement of planets, spores, stars, some going like comets.  It just happens now, it's natural.  

Even as she sits with the person she feels the safest with in years, sleep's still not possible for her.  She'll remain until exhaustion takes over her.  Frowning, she takes Kimberly's hand, rubbing softly at its creases, instilling its warmth to memory. 

“You’re cute when you’re worried about me."

Trini stares at her, mortified.  “Then I must be cute _all the time_.”

Kimberly chuckles and kisses her on the forehead, and Trini kind of deflates.  “You’re so cute.” Her voice even pitches on that one as she strokes Trini’s chin.

“I should kick your ass.”

“Kinky.”

“Kim!” Trini says.  She sighs.  Warmth rises to her cheeks.  “How many hours have you slept? Like, before our whole expedition to get the Master Sword?”

“Four hours.”

“Oh my god.” (”Oh my goddesses and god.”  And, or.  She doesn’t know anymore, honestly.) 

Trini grips one of Kimberly’s many pillows and places it on Kimberly’s face, prompting a little burst of fake-outrage.  “We need to figure out who that person was,” she says.

“So I can have our revenge. Like, what was their deal, attacking two chicks looking for a sword?”

“I don’t know, too.” Trini motions toward her.  Kimberly takes her hand unquestioningly, making her pulse jump.  “Call it Covert Operation…Virulent Foe, Encouraging Forceful Extraction.  Acronym, C.O.V.F.E.F.E..”

“Holy–holy fuck,” Kimberly chuckles.  Their hands fall to the bed, fingers lacing as one.

“Why did the Triforce pieces choose us?” Trini growls and scowls.  “Like, why? We’re already Power Rangers…I’m wearing so much blue that Billy’s started to notice, and you and your green cap keeps making its rounds in our training.”  She pauses.  “We haven’t been out on dates for a while.” 

“I kind of like the look,” Kimberly says, and Trini agrees but they’re trying to keep their newfound legacy, responsibility, and covert operations under wraps so Tommy’s color scheme is not helping.  “It works for improv-fighting too.  Like, just chuck it at Jason–he’s going to try to catch it–and elbow to the gut.  Wham.  Hot damn.  So it doubles as a fashion statement and tool _and a chick magnet_ –but no one else really talked about it.  It’s a small town but no one’s asked about the cap.”

“Maybe you can do that to them, and maybe once you get a goodnight sleep too, because it’s been too long since you’ve relaxed.  You’re too hard on yourself,” Trini says, and Kimberly beams a bit.  Call it an omen of good spirits, call it the magic, or call it her drowsiness, but the particles of gold, blue, and green dancing among them now revolve around Kimberly’s face and bring to Trini’s attention her full-body blush.

Call it bedazzlement with rhinestones and whole shebang.  She looks like her heart’s filled with rainbows, and as much as Trini wants to deny it, she feels the same.  

Kimberly’s eyes can’t stop jumping to their hands together and she’s chewing her bottom lip pensively with her eyebrows furrowed.  

“Why not today?” she asks.  “Why not today, we just go out, pretend to be your typical teenagers and I’m not saying we forget what we have to do, but we try to have some fun? You haven’t been doing so hot lately either.”

Trini looks at her tired, hopeful countenance, and nods.  To her, it’s not a hard question.  


End file.
